


Guard Duty

by Brigantine



Category: due South
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-15
Updated: 2010-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:44:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brigantine/pseuds/Brigantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stanley Raymond Kowalski's world is about to take a sharp left turn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guard Duty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Green](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Green/gifts).



> Many thanks to Mergatrude for giving this the hairy eyeball, and helping steer it onto the right track!
> 
> And, um, this Constance is not that Constance. Really.

"Go," Lieutenant Welsh ordered. "Sign a vehicle out from the motor pool, and leave that pretty Pontiac of yours behind."

Welsh handed Ray a set of directions scribbled on the back of the envelope from his electric bill. "Memorize this. Then you burn it, shred it, eat it, whatever it takes. When you get there, call the consulate - not me, the consulate - from my brother's office, let Turnbull know you're alive. You got all that?"

Ray nodded miserably. "I got it. Look, Lieu, what about you? I don't wanna leave you--"

"Don't you worry about me," Welsh growled. "I've got _ways_. Secret ways only police lieutenants know about."

"But Brandauer - "

Welsh snorted. "Brandauer was a moron, never did know when to back off. You drive as fast as won't get you noticed, and don't look back. Put all those sneaky tricks you picked up from your undercover years to good use. You disappear, I mean you cease to exist, you hear me? And then you stay put." He smiled grimly. "I'll be busy while you're away."

Ray looked back once as he pushed through the doors out of the darkened bull pen. Welsh stood there, big and craggy as a mountainside, his silhouette filling up the doorway to his office. Then Ray turned, and left him behind.

 

The Taurus Ray had signed out from the 2-7's motor pool when he fled Chicago he abandoned in Lafayette. He used the i.d. from an old assignment and paid cash for a used pickup, for sale by owner. The truck's license tags were current, and Ray carried the bill of sale in case he got stopped, but the Indiana DMV wasn't likely to see the new registration any time soon.

The truck's gas mileage wasn't great, but no worse than his beautiful GTO that he'd had to leave behind. Like the sleek Pontiac, the battered Chevy was the tough, basic sort of beast Ray understood. Short of a broken axle, he could do his own maintenance. The only thing he'd have to depend on someone else for was buying parts.

Right now, it was Ray who needed maintenance. For the past three days he'd been living on donuts, Slim Jims and coffee. Now it was after 11 on Friday night, and since Chicago he had stopped only to trade vehicles, and get gas. The switchback east to Indiana and then back toward Minnesota meant a long damn drive to the northwest coast of Lake Superior. He was hungry and he hadn't had a decent night's sleep since Monday, when a couple of beat cops from Chicago PD's 19th Precinct had discovered Assistant District Attorney Brandauer shot dead in his living room.

Off to the right the truck's headlights flickered over a battered old sign half obscured by underbrush. The sign's wavering letters read, "Welcome to Constance, Minnesota." Ray really hoped he was.

As he cruised slowly down the town's main street, Constance looked to him like the kind of little town where they rolled up the sidewalks after dinner. The street lamps were on, but nobody seemed to be around. He found the Sheriff's Office on the left, right next to "Shareen's Talon Salon," just like Welsh had written, but both buildings were dark. Off to the right, a red neon sign shimmering over a broad storefront spelled out, "Frobisher's General Store and Blood Bank."

Ray stopped the pickup in the middle of the street and blinked repeatedly, expecting the sign to change into something believable before his tired eyes, but it never did. He noticed that one of the o's in "Blood" quivered unevenly.

Smaller signs taped to the windows on either side of the front door to the shop stated, variously, "Our coffee pot is always on," "We pay extra for Rh Negative," and "Fresh gorgonzola, $2.75 per lb."

Welsh had warned Ray that not a single motel existed in Constance. As Ray urged the old truck further along the street, he wondered whether that was because the citizens of Constance didn't care much for strangers, or whether strangers didn't care much for Constance. Either way, apparently that welcome sign where Ray had come in was a big fat liar.

Ray noticed the lighthouse about a half mile ahead of him and off to his right as he left behind the outskirts of the weird little town. The tower rose tall and moonlit from a jagged promontory that jutted out into the dark waters of Lake Superior. The great lantern slowly turning at the top thrust its light out into the night, a broad, golden beam gliding warm over the heaving surface of the cold November water, and the jagged rocks just beneath it. A few yards further on Ray lost sight of the tower behind a high, thick screen of trees. It seemed to Ray like days since he'd seen the sun except by looking up at it from the bottom of a ravine made of tall, straight tree trunks. Even his high beams couldn't light more than a couple of feet into the shadows on either side of the road.

A red mailbox with "Fraser" stenciled neatly on it in square black letters appeared ahead, and a few feet past it Ray found the opening to a long, gravel drive. It wound narrowly up a steady, gentle slope for about a quarter mile, and then angled to follow the wavering line of the lake's shore for another quarter mile, give or take. Ray was grateful for the tough old pickup. It rolled and wallowed along in the dark, not seeming to mind the rutted gravel road. Finally the way opened out, and there in front of him the lighthouse tower rose up again, big and sturdy, bracing up the midnight sky. There was a neat, two-story cottage attached to the tower. In front of that was parked an old Jeep Wagoneer, and a red and white pickup. The lights were on in the house.

Ray shifted the truck into park and set the hand brake, the quiet night settling around him as the engine cooled, ticking arrhythmically. "Gee Dad," Ray murmured, "you waited up for me."

As Ray braced himself to get out of the cab and go knock on the front door it opened, spilling warm yellow light and a big, furry white dog into the night. The dog bounded toward Ray and stood barking enthusiastically and wagging a fluffy plume of a tail just outside the range of the door as Ray opened it.

Ray's joints creaked as he stepped down from the cab, and he wasn't sure his back would ever forgive him. The big white dog bounced forward, thrust his nose into Ray's crotch, and snorted forcefully.

"Ack! Ow! Hey!" Ray flailed and backed into the half-open truck door, slamming it shut on the edge of his coat. While he struggled to free himself the dog danced around, whining and barking, like he wanted Ray to hurry up and come on into the house, which Ray would've been glad to do, since it was November in Minnesota outside, except he was attached to the damn truck.

"I'm terribly sorry," a low voice apologized next to his left ear. "Diefenbaker tends to become over-excited when we have visitors. We don't see many new faces out here."

Ray turned, grousing, "You don't say?"

At which point he found himself nose to nose with a guy who looked like Snow White, as conceived by Eddie Bauer, and maybe the US Marine Corps. "We're a little out of the way," Snow White added, like Ray hadn't noticed.

"My coat is caught in the door," Ray stuttered, mentally ordering his hormones to quit combusting right now this minute. He hadn't combusted this spontaneously since he was fifteen years old and Stella Collins first kissed him, with tongue and everything, out behind the Burger Barn.

Snow White Bauer reached a sturdy arm, clad in red and black buffalo plaid, past Ray's chest and gave the door handle a squeeze. The door opened immediately, sending Ray reeling into Snow White, who caught him neatly and set him on his feet.

"Uck," Ray said, trying to quit careening.

Snow White smiled devastatingly, "You're welcome." He held out a pale, solid hand. "Benton Fraser, North West Mounted Police, retired. You are Detective Stanley Kowalski, I presume?"

Ray managed to return Benton's handshake without further embarrassing himself. Benton's was a big hand, nice and warm. Ray let it go with some regret. "I go by Ray. Stanley Raymond Kowalski."

Benton gestured toward the house. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ray. Shall we?"

Ray noticed a second figure standing on the wide front porch, watching them. He guessed just by the way the guy stood he must be related to Welsh. Of course, the cowboy hat and the shiny sheriff's badge helped.

 

Benton offered Ray coffee and soup, and sat him down at the kitchen table, where he wrapped his hands gratefully around the warm ceramic mug, and basked the rest of him in the welcome warmth emanating from the big old white-enameled stove.

Diefenbaker the dog had flopped down at Ray's feet, and was making like Ray's own personal foot-warmer, to which Ray had no objections at all.

Sheriff Wilson Welsh slurped at his coffee and said, "From as much as Harding's told me, it's an awful mess down there in Chicago. It could take a while for him to get it cleared up. I want you to know you're welcome here until Harding gives the all-clear, as long as it takes."

Benton finished fixing himself a cup of what Ray guessed was tea, and sat down at the head of the table, near Ray's left elbow. 'Sable' was the word Ray came up with to describe how dark Benton's hair was. It wasn't the sort of word Ray generally used, but then Benton wasn't the sort of guy Ray generally ran into.

"I appreciate that," Ray told the sheriff, "but I think it would be best if I got out of here tomorrow morning. The guys coming after me are very bad people, and it wouldn't be right for me to bring that kind of trouble on your town."

"We're not that easy a place to find," Benton assured him. "Harding gave you very specific directions. He intended for you to remain here."

"They'll come," Ray warned. "I've done my share of undercover gigs, and I can disappear pretty good, if I want to, but..." But yes, he did want to disappear completely, obliterate himself from the whole disastrous equation, except he never could do that to Vecchio. "Let's just say I got reasons to lead the Iguana boys on a wild goose chase, okay?"

Wilson snorted. He shook his head like maybe he thought Ray was off his onion, and nursed his coffee some more.

Benton stared at Ray with great big baby blue eyes. Jeez, the guy was a distraction. "Ray, what do you mean?"

Ray shrugged. "Vecchio's in the wind. Even I don't know where he is. Still, someone's got to lead the Iguana family's killer goons away from the people Vecchio loves, keep 'em busy so the lieutenant can figure out who killed Brandauer, and who we can trust."

"Ray, your concern is admirable, but those men can _not_ find you--"

Wilson interrupted Benton mid-sentence. "Who's Brandauer? Was he the man they found murdered on Monday?"

"Brandauer's the Chicago ADA," Ray explained. "He and your brother, they never got along, like Brandauer's got it - had it - stuck in his head that the lieu was up to something hinky, which is _stupid,_ just so you know. The lieu figures Brandauer got wind that we had something extra-curricular going on out at the 27th, and he went looking, shaking the snitches down, poking around, hoping to get dirt on the lieu, on our precinct. What he ended up tripping over was Raimundo Vecchio working undercover with the FBI as Armando Langoustine, out in Las Vegas. Now Vecchio's cover's blown, his whole family's gone into hiding, and here I am."

"Because you were once his partner at the 27th precinct, you're the person the Iguana family will expect knows the most," Wilson summed.

"I am the shiniest lure," Ray agreed cheerfully. He ate some more soup. It was chicken with little floury dumplings in it. It tasted homemade, and Ray made a point of noting for future reference how good it was.

Benton rubbed at one eyebrow, looking pained. "Ray, it is precisely because you are the person most in danger, aside of course from Lieutenant Welsh and Detective Vecchio himself, that Harding sent you to us."

"We can protect you," Wilson asserted, and Ray could tell he honestly believed it, but Ray was pretty sure Sheriff Wilson Welsh of Constance, Minnesota, had never seen what a determined mob goon could do to a guy from whom he wished to extract information, the key word here being 'extract.'

"I appreciate the offer," Ray told him. "I do, but I've got to keep moving, lead these guys on. If I can keep just ahead of 'em, keep 'em interested, I can buy the lieu some time."

Benton scrubbed at his eyebrow some more. "Ray..."

"Nah, nah," Wilson sighed, patting Benton's shoulder. "Ray's made up his mind." He started to get up from the table, adjusting his belt and cracking his back as he rose. He had a less formidable look about him than his elder brother, but he possessed the same solidity, a certain breadth of shoulder that made his shirt seem too small, even though Ray could see the seams hit exactly where they were supposed to.

Benton rose, protesting, "Wilson, he's not safe out there! If Harding went to particular effort to send him here, the situation must be grim indeed. He intended for us to protect Ray here! Ray belongs here, he's--"

"Look," Wilson soothed, "it's awful late, and Ray's got to be bone-deep tired after the week he's had. I'll come by in the morning. We'll have some breakfast, and see how things look, all right?"

Benton's mouth set stubbornly, but finally he agreed, reluctant and obviously still not happy. "Of course. A good night's rest can make all the difference."

 

Ray didn't remember much about getting into bed or even pulling the covers over himself, but when he woke up in the morning, there was weak, grey daylight filtering in through the curtains. He lay cocooned beneath a thick down comforter in a double bed, warm and feeling safe, and not all that eager to get up and face the lonely, dangerous road ahead of him. To one side stood a big wooden chest of drawers. It looked old, but it had been polished and cared for over the years. There was a narrow closet door, and next to that a little old-fashioned wash stand with a mirror over it, and a green glass vase holding some branches with bright red berries on them. Above the chest of drawers was a framed sketch of a big sailing ship, all her sails wide open, moving fast across the water. Ray remembered that Benton had said he didn't get a lot of visitors, but it seemed to Ray, looking around the small, tidy room, that maybe Benton kind of wished he did. For his part, Ray wished he could stay for a while. He took a deep breath, slung the warm covers off of himself, and got out of bed.

When Ray wandered down into the living room he took a minute to check the place out for the first time. Book cases lined the walls, none of them matching in size or style, but each one orderly and crammed with books about all sorts of things. The place smelled like coffee and warm bread, and the beginnings of bacon. The whole place reminded Ray of his grandma Walczak's tiny, warm apartment on the fifth floor of a big old stone building in a noisy blue-collar neighborhood in Chicago. Made no damn sense, but there it was. Ray rubbed at his eyes and silently listed to himself all the reasons he needed to be gone, as soon as possible.

Diefenbaker bounced into the room, yipping and warbling and generally jumping around like Ray was his long-lost best friend. Ray ruffled the big dog's fur and gave his ears a good scratch, in appreciation for which Dief slobbered all over Ray's hands and tried to jump up and slurp Ray's chin.

"Eww," Ray told him, but Dief seemed to take no offense, and Ray followed him into the kitchen.

Benton was fussing at the kitchen counter, doing something with toast and a meaty sort of bacon that looked more like skinny ham. Ray wondered whether impending breakfast had a lot to do with Dief's good mood. It certainly lifted Ray's spirits.

He aimed toward the coffee pot. "Um, good morning."

Benton turned abruptly, as though Ray had surprised him, though considering the racket Dief and Ray had been making in the living room, that seemed unlikely. "Ah! Ray! I hope you slept well?"

Ray eyed him. The guy was looking kind of twitchy. "I slept real good, thanks. I needed that."

"Please, make yourself at home," Benton urged, weirdly jovial. "How do you like your breakfast? We have plenty of breakfast. And you've found the coffee..."

Benton babbled about coffee and pemmican and a whole list of other breakfast-related items apparently favored by the Inuit, while Ray, calmly pouring himself a large mug of welcome caffeine and rummaging in the fridge for the milk amongst the eggs, the butter, a big brown bottle of A+ blood, and a new jar of blackberry jam, thought to himself that a) this babbling Benton was a very different Benton from the night before, and 2) something was queer.

 _"Benton."_ Ray interrupted a rapid-fire history of the seal-blubber omelette. "Where is Sheriff Welsh?"

Benton stared at him, mid-toast. "Ah." Benton cleared his throat, and that was a guilty throat-clearing if Ray had ever heard one.

He bolted for the kitchen door, barely touching the back stairs on his way down, and pelted around to the front, aiming for his truck. He could hear Benton right behind him. "Ray, I can explain!"

Two minutes later, he had Benton by the front of his flannel shirt, and was slamming him repeatedly against the side of the truck, yelling, "Give me back my battery, Goddammit!"

Benton winced as the back of his head hit the driver's side window. "I didn't - ow - take your battery, Ray."

"I don't know what you call this in Minnesota, but in Chicago this is illegal detainment and kidnapping and stupid, and I am not havin' it!"

"Ray..."

"Tell me where my truck battery is, you dirty truck battery stealer!"

 _"Ray!"_ Benton pushed back hard, and quicker than Ray had ever seen anyone move, he whirled Ray around and shoved him against the truck. The door handle dug painfully into his left shoulder.

"Ray," Benton growled, up close and breathing hard. "Sheriff Welsh removed the battery from your truck!"

This was the Benton Fraser Ray remembered from the night before, except _more._ The guy was strong as hell, and he was pressing Ray against the cold metal with his whole body, part of which Ray could feel was either turned on by Ray or by adrenaline, but either way, Benton was sporting some dangerous lumber behind his jeans.

Ray felt himself zing all the way down and up and down again, but he was too angry to enjoy it. "You don't understand," Ray yelled some more. "They will come here, and they will find me, and I will be dead!"

"They will _not_ find you, Ray, I've been trying to tell you--"

"If they don't find me, they will start hurting people until you give me up. Surrender Dorothy, and your little dog, too! You have to let me go, Benton!"

"No," Benton insisted fiercely, "No, in fact, I do not!"

Up this close Benton's eyes seemed glow hot blue at him for a second, and Ray imagined he saw fangs, actual fangs, white and sharp, but that was just nuts.

Ray wriggled and tried to push Benton off, but at the same time he was zinging like crazy, plus trying to come up with a better argument than "We're all going to die!" which for most guys would have been a pretty good argument right from the get-go, but apparently not retired Mounties.

Benton jammed a knee between Ray's thighs and pressed harder. "Ray, stop!"

Ray swore, caught between the instinct to punch Benton in the face to get him to back off, or the urge to grab his head and kiss him a lot. "No, you stop!" was the best Ray could come up with, and that sounded pathetic even to him.

There was a loud, deep barking past Benton's shoulder. Benton snarled impatiently and turned, still pressing one forearm across Ray's chest.

What looked like a giant mastiff stood in the yard near the tail gate of Benton's truck. The big animal hesitated there looking baffled for a few seconds, then woofed and tilted its broad head, as though trying to figure out what was going on. From inside the house, Dief barked a happy-sounding greeting.

The mastiff _rippled._ To Ray it was like watching through Jello as the dog shifted from its four feet onto its hind legs, and then from a dog shape into a big, broad-chested older guy with a lot of white hair. A naked older guy with a lot of white hair.

Ray boggled.

The naked guy glanced from him to Benton, raised his eyebrows, and rumbled, "Oh dear."

Benton grimaced. "Ah, hell." He sighed defeatedly, but maintained his hold on Ray. "Ray, this is Buck Frobisher. Buck, may I introduce Detective Raymond Kowalski."

Buck fidgeted. "Yes, certainly, good morning, a pleasure to meet you, Detective. We've been expecting you, er, not today of course... You drove straight through, I see. Made good time. Well done, lad. Um..."

Ray squeaked, "Pleasure to meet you," noting wildly to himself that his mother would be proud he'd managed to keep his good manners under the circumstances.

"Buck, perhaps, if you don't mind..." Benton gestured toward the forest.

"Ah! Of course. I'll just... We'll chat another day then," Buck promised, and easy as that he melted back into his big dog shape, and bounded into the trees.

"I think I've lost my mind," Ray whimpered.

Benton groaned and pressed the top of his head against the truck window, next to Ray's ear.

Ray slouched there, pinned between Benton and the truck, thinking. He noted that Benton was warm and heavy and smelled pleasantly of wood smoke and pine pitch. He wondered if Diefenbaker was really a dog, and whether maybe Benton was really a wood nymph. God knew he was attractive enough, and he smelled like a tree, so why not?

And then Ray remembered hot blue eyes, and maybe-fangs, and a brown bottle of A-positive blood in Benton's refrigerator, right next to the eggs. He felt his adrenaline kick up another notch.

"You know," Ray dared, "I always believed the bloodthirsty walking dead would be colder to the touch."

Benton sighed, his voice muffled by Ray's collar. "Will you come with me into the lighthouse? I seem to think best up there, and this particular tale... well."

Ray shrugged as casually as he could fake it. "Sure, why not?"

 

Diefenbaker barked up at them from the bottom of the steep tower stairs, and Ray made Benton slow down so the dog could keep up. Ray felt better with Dief there, even though for all he knew Dief might be a human guy, or a crocodile under all that white fur.

The lantern room was a tight squeeze, but there was room enough for the three of them along the railed walkway around the outside. A swift, chill breeze made Ray pull his gloves out of his jacket pocket, and he was glad to have Dief leaning warm against his leg. Ray's gaze swept over the expanse of water below, gleaming sullenly under a tumbling sky. Along the near shore grey waves broke white-edged against the dark, sharp rocks below the lighthouse.

Ray angled so that he could see Benton's face better, shadowed beneath the wide brim of a new Stetson, as though he might be using the hat as a sort of shield, rather than simply to keep his head warm. "So..." Ray prodded. "Here we are. You gonna throw me off, or start with the storytelling?"

"Right," Benton nodded resolutely. "Explanation." He took a deep breath, and started talking.

"My father was Sergeant Robert Fraser, of the North West Mounted Police. In October of 1877, he was tracking a man he believed to be a serial killer--"

Ray flung out a gloved hand like a stop sign. "Wait! Your father, not your great-grandfather?"

Benton fixed Ray with that deep blue stare of his, like he was willing Ray to get with the program. "Yes, Ray."

Right. Mountie with fangs. Were-mastiff.

"Got it," Ray said, shivering a little. "Go ahead."

"My father believed the murderer to be a man named Gerard. He trailed Gerard down out of the Northwest Territories, and across Manitoba. At Fort Severn he wrote in his journal that he was sure Gerard was nearby, and that he was close to making an arrest. That was my father's final entry in the journal. Two days later he was discovered murdered, by person or persons then unknown. The NWMP assumed that his quarry had turned and killed him but there was no hard evidence that would link the crime to Gerard, and all too soon the NWMP gave up the hunt and closed the case. I couldn't let it lie. I took up the pursuit without my commanding officer's permission." Benton frowned down at his scruffy hiking boots. "I was very young."

"He was your dad," Ray championed softly.

"Yes." Ben gave Ray a grateful little smile. "Thanks to assistance from a number of indigenous folk who had had the misfortune to encounter Gerard and who, not unreasonably, believed him to be a demon, I managed to pick up Gerard's trail further south. Instead of contacting my c.o. at that point, and risking being told to wait - the very thought of which was intolerable to me at that time - I followed Gerard east to Port Arthur, where I believed him to have taken passage aboard a Hudson's Bay freighter, the Henry Allen, bound for Sault Saint Marie. He would cross Lake Superior to new hunting grounds, and begin killing afresh, unless I stopped him. I boarded the ship, intending to confront and arrest Gerard, but though I was certain he had boarded the vessel, my repeated searches of the ship were fruitless."

Ray wondered, "What about the ship's log, the book thingie? Didn't the captain know who was on his ship?"

Benton squinted hard in the morning light, though the sky was lowering, and dark. "The captain was sympathetic. He had known my father in their youth, and he allowed for the possibility of a stowaway, but though the captain searched the cabins, and I searched the ship's hold thoroughly, we never found the man."

Benton bit his lower lip, smiling bitterly. "As it happened, my certainty was later proven correct. Not far past Isle Royale we were set upon by a terrific storm, which drove us west from our intended course, and finally dashed the ship onto the rocks, there, beyond the point."

"You crashed right here? At the lighthouse?" Ray stared out at the chill water, a lifetime of Errol Flynn movies filling his imagination with a sleek sailing ship, maybe three masts, her main sails furled up tight against the raging wind. The helmsman, lashed by rain and vast, grasping waves, remained stubbornly at his wheel, struggling to guide the ship and all her crew through the dark fury of the storm.

"Constance didn't exist then," Benton went on. "There had been a small settlement here long past, but it lay entirely in ruins. The lighthouse had been only half built before all was abandoned. Honestly, I'm not sure the light would have saved us, the storm was so terrible. November is always the hardest month on the Great Lakes."

"The Witch," Ray murmured. He blinked at the disappearing images over the cold water.

"Yes, exactly. The Witch of November. I managed to make my way ashore. Surely it was a miracle, I believed at the time. I searched the rocky beach for fellow survivors, but found only one; Gerard, real after all, and... and hungry. He overpowered me easily. God, he was strong! He murdered me as he had my father, except that instead of leaving me mercifully to die, he turned me. It was a joke on his part, you see. One last jab at my father. Now... well, now here I am."

Ray protested, "But you made us breakfast."

"I made _you_ breakfast," Benton corrected.

"Oh." Ray frowned. "This Gerard vampire guy, he's still out there somewhere, eating people?"

Benton's face turned cold, cold like the marble on a mausoleum, and he looked out over the wintry lake and said, flat as stone, "No. No, he is not."

They stood in silence for a while, until Ray said, "Good for you, Benton."

"It didn't undo what he'd made me," Benton replied sadly.

"So... you came back here, and you fixed up the old lighthouse so it does what it was meant to do, huh?"

Benton offered him a small smile. "I fixed the lighthouse, so it does what it's meant to do." He hunched inside his big plaid jacket and licked nervously at his bottom lip, watching Ray from under the brim of his Stetson, as though he expected him to freak out, which, Ray figured, given the situation, was not an unreasonable concern.

"Was Buck here when you, y'know, arrived?"

Benton shook his head. "Mavis Beewick was the first to find her way here. It was mid-February, three weeks after I'd repaired the tower stairs and fixed the lantern."

"And she is...?"

"Our postmistress."

Ray snorted, "Not that, I mean useful to know and all, but you know that's not what I meant."

Benton gave him a quick, mischievous smile. It was a good look on the guy. "She's a banshee. Lovely woman, but please don't ever make her angry. When Mavis is upset we all pay."

"Duly noted," Ray grinned.

"After Mavis," Benton recalled, "there was Everett Skagway, and then Irene Halpern, and then Buck Frobisher, and..." Benton shrugged faintly. "Others, of course."

"And those other two, Irene and Everett, they were..." Ray raised his eyebrows meaningfully.

Benton nodded. "Not entirely human."

Lions and tigers and vampires, oh my. Ray felt a light bulb go on in his brain, big and bright, like the lighthouse lantern, like the way he felt when all the details of a frustrating case suddenly clicked into place in his head, and he knew exactly who'd dunnit. Dot it, file it. Ray dotted a period in the air. "Constance is like Macaroon," he declared.

"Maca..." Benton looked at Ray as though he might have misplaced a marble or two. "Do you mean Brigadoon?"

"Yeah, exactly!" Ray flailed for emphasis. "Look. See, somebody way back when tried to start a town in this place, but it didn't take, like the place didn't _want_ them. But then you come along, damaged and immortal and magicky, and from far and wide, misfits and freaks--no offense--"

"None taken."

"--all these people who don't fit anywhere else, they start to drift in here, start to make this old ruined place into a home, and it works, because your magic, their magic, matches with the _place_ magic." Ray banged his gloved fists happily against the iron railing. "All those people in town, Benton, they saw your light and they followed it, and now they can belong here and have neighbors, because after all you'd been put through, you decided to plant yourself here and make a stand!"

"You know," Benton argued amiably, "Brigadoon was actually cursed."

Ray ignored him. "People see the light house, right? Whole shiploads of people see this lighthouse, but then they journey on, safe and sound. Nobody who doesn't belong here _sees the town._ "

Benton pointed out, "You found us. You _know._ "

Ray shrugged. "Welsh gave me directions, Benton. I wasn't drawn here by the magic."

"Perhaps being sent here by magic is the same thing," Benton suggested.

Ray yawped. "Welsh?"

"Bears," Benton told him, looking smug.

"Bears? You're telling me the Welsh brothers are were-bears?" Ray scratched his cold nose. "Huh. That would explain some things."

Benton grimaced at the tumbling sky. "Do you suppose we could go back downstairs? I'm not usually awake much during daylight, and you never did get your breakfast."

Diefenbaker grumbled and nudged Ray's hip. Apparently he hadn't got his breakfast, either.

"Cold as a witch's elbow up here, too," Ray agreed. "But look," he stalled at the narrow door to the lantern room, forcing Benton to quickly backpedal. "The fact is, I can't abandon Vecchio and his family. Hell, he's married to my ex-wife Stella, and maybe we can't live together anymore, but I still fix her car, and she nags me about eating my vegetables. I can't just disappear and leave all of them for the Iguana goons to hunt down, trying to get at Raimundo. Magic or not, I have to go, Benton."

"Ray..." Benton sighed and scrubbed at his ear, like maybe Ray was being kind of dumb, but Benton was too polite to come right out and say it. "Ray, if Harding Welsh sent you here, and told you to stay put, don't you think he had a reason? What if, by disobeying your commanding officer, you ruin a plan he may have gone to some pains to set in place? What if _you_ endanger your partner, by refusing to play the role assigned to you?"

_What if you end up killed dead and turned into a guy who can't go to daytime ballgames or have pizza or drink beer anymore, because you didn't listen to the were-bear's orders?_

"I hadn't thought of it that way," Ray admitted, and then he thought of something else, and there were all sorts of light bulbs going on inside his head. It was confusing in there, but really colorful.

"Well," Benton said, guiding him toward the stairs. "There you are."

"Hey Benton - ow!"

"Ray, I wish you wouldn't keep stopping abruptly."

"Look, what if... D'you think maybe Welsh sent me here, um, for another reason?" It was like Christmas in downtown Chicago in Ray's brain with all the ideas blinking on, and he missed Vecchio even more, because as loudly as Raimundo complained that Ray could not know things the way he knew them, Vecchio always backed Ray's light-bulb moments anyway.

Diefenbaker, who had squeezed past Ray, turned in the narrow space three steps down and whuffled up at him.

"Did that dog just roll his eyes at me?"

Benton sighed. He seemed to do that a lot. "You're being fanciful," he told Diefenbaker.

"Fanciful?"

"Wolves are incurable romantics, I'm afraid," Benton apologized.

One of Ray's shiny brain-light bulbs flickered. "Wolves?"

"Diefenbaker is half wolf," Benton explained. "Supposedly mostly deaf as well, but the condition seems to be selective."

Ray jabbed a forefinger into Benton's chest. For a dead guy, he felt mighty warm. "You're telling me a half-deaf half-wolf is saying fanciful romantic things about me being here?"

"Ouch. Could we please not talk about this halfway down the tower stairs?"

Ray jabbed again, just because. "You are evading like an evading person with something he wants to evade from."

"Excuse me?"

Diefenbaker groaned.

"I'll handle this, if you don't mind," Benton scolded.

Diefenbaker snorted.

"Amen," Ray agreed, "to whatever that meant. I'm pretty sure the wolf-dog here is on my side. Benton, do you or do you not think maybe Welsh sent me here for matchmaking-type motives, on account of you being alone and lonely, and by yourself way out here, with only the wolf to talk to, no offense to the wolf?"

The wolf in question sneezed.

"See? Motion seconded."

Benton rubbed at his eyebrow some more, and stared at his boots. "Ray, we've known one another for less than a day, and you have an ex wife."

Ray countered, "Listen, I'm sure there are lots of perfect times for Mountie logic, but you've lived in this town long enough you should realize that logic is not what we're dealing with here. Ask the wolf there."

"Ray, you know Diefenbaker is a biased observer."

"Shut up. Look, Benton buddy, maybe you and me only met yesterday, but Welsh has known both of us for a long time, and he knows that, well, I'm adaptable, if you get my drift."

Benton frowned thoughtfully. "Are you referring to your past assignments under cover? Or, well, you do seem to be taking recent historical revelations admirably in stride."

"Histi-what?" Ray scowled. "No, not that! I am not referring to--okay, you know what, yes," Ray recalled. "I once had to pretend to be a downtown rent boy, and the whole 'Hel- _lo_ sailor, you want I should show you a good time?' shtick was not that big of a stretch for me, except for the tight pants and the negotiating renumberation part."

"Renum--?" Benton squeaked, _"Hello sailor?"_ It was kind of adorable, the way his eyes bugged out like that.

"And unless your guy bits and my guy bits dancing the samba out at the truck a little bit ago were mistaken, and believe me, when it comes to dancing I rarely miss a beat, you were gettin' pretty possessive there."

Benton smiled and fiddled with his Stetson. "Fair point."

Ray grinned. He never would have expected a vampire to be able to blush, but then up to about twenty minutes ago he didn't believe they really existed, so there you were. "So the answer is yes."

"In a manner of speaking." Benton cleared his throat and blushed some more. It was really cute, in a manly ex-cop way. "Ray, I have a confession, ah, about last night."

Ray's eyebrows lifted. "Generally paragraphs including 'About last night' do not bode well."

"I watched you sleeping," Benton admitted. "Merely to be sure you were all right, I assure you! It's just that I'm usually awake at night, and you looked positively haggard when you arrived, so I checked in on you, and you..." He blurted out, "You looked lovely and I watched you sleep for thirty-seven minutes."

"I looked _lovely?_ "

"I'm very sorry Ray, I didn't mean to take advantage. It won't happen again!"

Ray teased, "What, I didn't look _delicious?_ "

"No! No! Absolutely not!" Benton quit babbling, and regarded Ray with the beginnings of a smile. "Well, maybe a little."

Ray bounced, cracked his neck loudly, and started back down the stairs. "Okay then. Here I stay, for as long as the lieu tells me to. This here is my new vacation spot, forever, amen. Obeying orders, that's me. I am all about doing as I'm told. What are you laughing at?"

"Nothing at all, Ray. Please, continue."

"First we get down to terra firma, 'cause I'm thinking normally this is where I'd kiss you or you'd kiss me to, y'know, seal the deal, except not halfway up a staircase, 'cause I'm likely to get distracted and fall and break my head, which would be bad."

"That would be very bad," Benton agreed.

"Then me and the wolf will have some regular mortal people breakfast, and you can drink some nice blood--"

"I prefer hot tea in the mornings, if that's all right."

"A tea-totalling vampire, this is my life now," Ray told no one in particular. He wasn't complaining, but if he was going to start a new life in a town full of weirdos with an undead vampire Mountie boyfriend, he figured that was something that ought to get said out loud.

"It's a special bark tea, Ray, made from--"

Ray stopped, turned, and grabbed Benton by the shoulders to be sure he was paying attention. "Just one thing, and this is important."

"--an old Inuit recipe." Benton blinked his baby blues, focusing hard. "Yes, Ray?"

Ray shook off the urge to plant one on him, right there in front of the fluffy white wolf. "Okay two things. The first thing is, you never bite me when I'm asleep. I definitely want to be awake for that."

"Ray, I would _never_ \--" Benton gaped, "Wait, are you saying you might _enjoy--?_ " He flashed Ray a bright, wicked smile. "Oh. I see."

Ray ignored the way his knees suddenly felt half melted, and waved two fingers in front of Benton's nose. "And the second thing is: I'm sure he's a great guy and all, but I do not - and I cannot stress this enough - I do not want to see Buck Frobisher naked ever again."

Benton snickered, "Understood," and steered Ray toward the kitchen door, where Dief was already woofing at them both to hurry up.

 

\--#--

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Guard Duty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11880534) by [Luzula (Luzula_podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula_podfic/pseuds/Luzula)




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